THOUGH the fiction he publishes without the M can be patchy, Iain M Banks’s latest tale of his spacefaring libertarian utopia the Culture is another triumph.

In a galactic meta-civilisation where souls can be digitally recorded, Lededje Y’breq sets out for vengeance on the man who owned and then murdered her – the ghastly tycoon Veppers.

Meanwhile, controversy over whether it is acceptable for religious societies to use this soul-keeping technology, to make real the Hells with which they threaten the dead, is about to spill into open warfare. Banks weaves an all-too-topical account of the evils of religion and unbridled capitalism into a dense, tense and frequently hilarious adventure.